The Patient Protection and Affordable Health Care Act has made significant progress toward solving many longstanding challenges to the U.S. healthcare system, including making coverage more available and affordable, reducing uninsured rates, improving access to preventive services, encouraging community-based public health and prevention efforts, and helping communities reduce disparities in the health outcomes of their residents. But the work is not done.
The ACA has already helped make healthcare more affordable by lowering marketplace insurance premiums and decreasing out-of-pocket costs for enrollees. And it has introduced new tools to bring down the rate of growth in healthcare spending, including a reduction in administrative costs and a shift to performance-based reimbursements that reward doctors and hospitals for meeting certain benchmarks.
Achieving a high-quality, affordable and accessible healthcare system requires the actions of a broad array of stakeholders: patients, professionals, insurers, employers, communities and the government. In many ways, the most fundamental and effective steps are those involving behavioral change.
Healthcare reform can also involve addressing the way medical education, licensing and practice regulations influence supply of physicians and other healthcare professionals. And it can include implementing policies that ensure physician income equality and reduce the cost of medical malpractice insurance. The final rule passed by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services last year is one example, righting the prior authorization process that imposes delays on medical services and procedures for millions of enrolled Medicare Advantage beneficiaries. We encourage Members of Congress to pursue these types of healthcare reforms, which are essential to preserving the physician-patient relationship and supporting independent physician practices.